We had Wild Rice, Blue Mule, Nay and PhatFJ from the club. We had my daughters XJ, SIL's Suburban (), a really bad Toyota truggie, and a couple of Heep's tagging along.

The wheelin' and rock crawling was GREAT until Wild Rice blew his front diff just past the rock garden. Not sure if he sheared off the pnion or cleaned all of the teeth off of the pinion. He had the really good quality 5.29's in there and they still broke If there was any good news it occurred at a spot where he was able to make it out OK in 2WD.

After the rock crawling we had about 2 hours of great scenery, weather was overcast with mixed rain/sleet/snow. Late in the afternoon though it cleared off and warmed up. I think PhatFJ got lots of pictures and video so we'll have to wait for him to share.

Is the R & P still useable or are they all chewed up? If they're still good, you may have just been the victim of a poorly manufactured bearing case. Still a PITA but better than grenading the R&P.

No idea till I pull the third. I have a hunch what failed (can't imagine how) is the solid spacer I used shattered letting the pinion float in and thus blowing the bearing. Just a hunch as I have thought hard about this since it happened. No "pop" when it broke just crunching sounds that turned into binding crunching sounds.

No idea till I pull the third. I have a hunch what failed (can't imagine how) is the solid spacer I used shattered letting the pinion float in and thus blowing the bearing. Just a hunch as I have thought hard about this since it happened. No "pop" when it broke just crunching sounds that turned into binding crunching sounds.

Was it a solid spacer similar to the one you used for a trail fix on JC?!?!